


The Roots of Friendship

by watcherofworlds



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Other, Rogers family history, Rogers/Barnes friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-21
Updated: 2016-06-21
Packaged: 2018-07-16 11:34:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7266517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/watcherofworlds/pseuds/watcherofworlds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Rogers/Barnes friendship runs deeper than you think.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Roots of Friendship

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is based off a little headcanon of mine. Hope you enjoy!

  George looked around him. The camp was chaos, full of men talking and laughing about what they were going to do when the fighting was over, though he wondered if that would be as soon as they seemed to think. Introductions meant for other people flew past his ears, a jumble of names that he forgot as soon as he heard them. More than one person boasted loudly about the wife or girl waiting for them back home. George rolled his eyes at this. He wasn't one to go around extolling his wife's virtues to everyone he met, not because she didn't have them but because they were really better appreciated in person. Besides, even if the men doing it didn't, George knew what bragging about your girl really was-a competition, a way to prove how much more masculine you were in comparison to the guy next to you-and it was just as stupid and ultimately useless as every other puffed up display of masculinity that George had encountered in his twenty some odd years on God's green earth.  

 As his thoughts drifted toward home and his hand drifted to the pocket where he kept a photograph of his wife and year old son, George noticed the only other person who had chosen to distance himself from the noise and general chaos of the camp. He was staring intently at the ground, deliberately not meeting anyone's eyes, but his arms were at his sides and his shoulders were back as if he was expecting to have to snap to attention at any moment. George decided right then and there that this was a man he wanted to get to know better.

  "Hello," he said, striding over and offering a hand for the other man to shake. "I'm George Barnes. And you are?"

   "Joseph," the other man replied, returning George's handshake. "Joseph Rogers." He looked slightly startled by George's sudden appearance, and there was a distant look in his dark grey eyes that made it clear that his mind was somewhere other than the current conversation.

 "Something on your mind, Joseph?" George asked. Joseph sighed.

 "No," he said. He spoke with an Irish lilt that George hadn't noticed a moment ago. "It's just... I, well..." George waited patiently for him to spit out whatever was on his mind.

 "My wife is pregnant," he finally said, with all the gravity of a young man facing the sometimes overwhelming responsibility of fatherhood, one that George was quite familiar with. He grinned.

 "That's great!" he said, clapping Joseph on the shoulder. "Congratulations! Boy or girl?"  

 "We don't know yet," Joseph replied, shaking his head. He seemed oddly subdued for someone who was about to be a father. "It's too early to tell. But my wife...she didn't want me to enlist. Said she didn't want to risk having our child grow up fatherless."

 "Your wife sounds like a smart woman," George said.

 "She is," Joseph said, quietly but emphatically. "Smart and beautiful and everything I could possibly hope for in a wife." There was a smile playing with the corners of his mouth now, but his overall demeanor was one of worry and dread. He removed his helmet and ran his hand nervously through his shock of pale brown hair

"Hey, lighten up," George said, giving him an encouraging shove. "The word around camp is that the war will be over by June. You just have to hold out that long, and then you can go home to your wife. God knows I can't wait to. It feels like I've been away from her too long already." Joseph smiled the smallest of smiles.

 "You might be right," he said. He put his helmet back on and squared his shoulders. "Let's go win a war."

 "That's the spirit!" George replied enthusiastically, and the two of them went off to war together.

George and Joseph became fast friends during their time in the trenches, bonding in the way only men at war can. Having that friendship made life a little bit easier for both of them, even when it began to look like the war would not, in fact, be over by June as they'd hoped. It wasn't over until November, and Joseph didn't even make it to the end. He was killed in a gas attack in the beginning of May, only weeks after meeting George. George had sent a letter home about it days after the fact, not out of apathy but out of a desire to grieve on his own before he burdened anyone else with the news. Joseph's loss was a wound he didn't think he'd ever fully recover from, and he could only imagine how Joseph's wife must have felt, knowing that her worst fear had been realized.

  _Dear Winnie_ , he'd written.

_Life in the trenches continues apace. We've had some casualties, but nothing too major, or at least that's what they say. Considering one of the men we lost was my friend, it felt pretty major to me. Joseph Rogers was his name. He had a pregnant wife waiting for him back home-she should be getting a condolence letter any day now, not that those letters ever mean a damn thing to the people who receive them. A letter won't bring that poor woman's husband back. A letter won't prevent her child from growing up without a father. I rue the day I ever heard the term "acceptable casualties"._

_With love,_

_George_

_P.S.-Say hello to James for me. Tell him his daddy hopes he'll be home soon._


End file.
